Senior Design Manager - Design Systems

The way products get built is changing. Agents write a growing share of shipped interfaces, designers work in code, and a design system's output is bigger than a component library. At Datadog we're redefining ours for that world, and evolving how the product looks and feels at the same time.

DRUIDS is the design system behind every Datadog surface, used daily by more than a hundred designers and thousands of engineers across thirty-plus products. You'll lead the team that owns it: designers and design engineers who set the system's direction, hold the quality bar for what ships, and build the tools that make designing in code the default way to work. The team partners closely with product designers, frontend engineers and PMs across the company.

This is a hands-on leadership role in a technical, engineering-forward company. You'll be expected to have a point of view and defend it, to be the person the design org asks about quality, and to make the call when work isn't good enough yet. Much of what a design system should be right now hasn't been settled — here or anywhere else. If you're a designer who never stopped making things, and you'd rather decide what a system should be than maintain one that already exists, this is the role.

What You'll Do

Lead the team and set its direction

• Decide what DRUIDS owns, what it ships, and what stays with product teams.
• Own where the system goes next. Have a view on what a design system should be, and argue for it.
• Turn direction into a roadmap, and work with partners on what gets built and when.
• Coach the designers and design engineers on your team, be clear about what each person owns, and hire as the team grows.

Own craft and quality

• Own the craft and quality of components, patterns, and principles.
• Decide what's good enough to go into DRUIDS.
• Raise the quality of the product through the system, and through the way design gets made here.
• Say when work isn't good enough.

Own the tooling the system runs on

• Own the tooling that makes the system usable, and the workflows people use to build with it.
• Work out how design quality gets evaluated, by people and by agents, and where that belongs in how software gets shipped.
• Decide what the system ships beyond components, and which formats and surfaces it needs to reach.

Stay close to product design

• Keep a pulse on what’s getting built and where teams are struggling.
• Define how the system shows up for product teams — the touchpoints, relationships and working models needed to support them.
• Make the system something teams want to use.

Who You Are

• You have 8+ years in product design, 3+ of them managing.
• You've managed a design system team and grown it.
• You read and write front-end code, and can have conversations about it.
• You design, have opinions and a point of view.
• You are a clear communicator.
• Your feedback improves quality and direction.
• You can build relationships with fellow leaders and influence them
• You've developed reports, and you've handled people who weren't performing.
• You want to work in an engineering-forward company.

Benefits and Growth:

• New hire stock equity (RSUs) and employee stock purchase plan (ESPP)
• Continuous professional development, product training, and career pathing
• Intradepartmental mentor and buddy program for in-house networking
• An inclusive company culture, ability to join our Community Guilds (Datadog employee resource groups)
• Access to Inclusion Talks, our internal panel discussions
• Free, global mental health benefits for employees and dependents age 6+
• Competitive global benefits

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